Blog Article

Dental marketing for your clinic

Traditional marketing is no longer cutting it and more and more clinics are turning to online dental marketing to attract new patients.

By 2020, there will be just shy of 220,000 dentists in the U.S. alone. This means patients have plenty of options when it comes to dentists so it will be that much more important for you to stand out among the crowd.

The way people conduct research these days has changed dramatically. Gone are newspaper ads and billboards. Now, patients research online before even stepping foot in a dental clinic. With 3.5 billion searches on Google a day, you can no longer afford to slack on your dental online marketing.

There are many different tactics when it comes to digital dental marketing. You can pay for online ads. You can boost your search engine rankings. You can share valuable content on social media. You can set up targeted email campaigns.

There are three main benefits when it comes to dental online marketing over traditional marketing:

Target prospective patients: With traditional marketing, you’re marketing to the masses, but with online marketing, you can customize relevant messages and deliver them at the right time to the right people.

Gain invaluable analytics: You get important information such as audience demographics and cost per conversion that you can use to refine your marketing efforts.

The dental industry is projected to be worth around $36.8 billion by 2021 so in order for your clinic to stay competitive, you need to establish a dental marketing strategy that involves a mix of paid advertising, search engine optimization, social media, and email marketing.

DENTAL MARKETING ADS

There are three different types of paid advertising: search, social, and display.

Search ads are also known as paid search, search engine marketing (SEM), or pay-per-click (PPC). They allow you to use advertising platforms, such as Google AdWords or Bing Ads, to get your content in front of people who are searching for relevant keywords. Search ads operate on a pay-per-click basis, which means that you only pay when your ad is clicked on.

Although PPC ads come at a cost, this type of online advertising is beneficial because you can control the messaging of your ads, track your campaign results, and set a maximum daily limit so you don’t go over budget.

Social advertising, also known as paid social ads, are ads on social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. With social ads, you pay the social media platform to boost your posts, offers, or promotions to a targeted list, ensuring your content is seen by potential patients. By 2019, Facebook ad revenue is expected to exceed print ads.

Display ads appear in sections specifically reserved for paid advertising such as at the top or on the side of the web page.

Through Google Display Networks, display ads have a far reach across millions of websites and as a result, your ads can be seen by many potential patients.

DENTAL SEO

SEO stands for search engine optimization and is crucial to attracting new patients.

Dental SEO helps those looking for a dentist find your website. Good dental SEO ensures your website ranks higher in search results, ensuring people discover it. This is important because while 51% of people search Google to find a dentist, few will click past the first page of results.

To help ensure your website appears on the first page, there are a few technical SEO foundations to have in place, such as a mobile-optimized website and fast page speeds.

After you set up a foundation, you’ll have to put effort into creating keyword-rich content to increase traffic and keep visitors on your website.

Below are some tips on optimizing your content to improve your dental SEO:

Research relevant keywords that a potential patient would search

Write relevant, high-quality, and keyword-focused content on a consistent cadence

Place keywords in the right places:

Page title

Meta description

URLs

Headlines

Body copy

Image alt tags

Another tactic to improve your search rankings is to enhance your local SEO. This is particularly valuable for dental clinics as patients will typically look for a dentist near them. 85% of searchers use the internet to find local businesses.

You can improve your local SEO by claiming your Google My Business profile and ensuring you have good reviews. There is nothing more powerful and persuasive than social proof to convince a prospect to become a patient.

SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING

Social media opens a dialogue for you to talk directly to both current and potential patients. The healthcare industry is realizing that social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are a goldmine for discovering new patients, interacting with current patients, and gaining brand loyalty.

Social media is also an effective platform to share the content that you create, such as blog posts and videos. When you share relevant and useful content, you build trust and stay top of mind.

Instead of trying to use every social media platform under the sun and spreading yourself too thin, choose one or two to focus on. Facebook and Twitter are the most commonly used for dental clinics.

EMAIL MARKETING

Email marketing involves sending targeted emails to a house list. Emails can include newsletters, promotions, birthday wishes, holiday greetings, and special announcements. Email marketing also includes sending appointment reminders to avoid late cancellations or no-shows. Reminders are very effective tactics to get patients who are due for a checkup to book appointments, keeping your dental schedule populated.

In today’s day and age, dental marketing strategies are far more effective than traditional marketing tactics and can lead to substantial growth and increased revenue for your dental clinic.